In Love...

With the days hopefully getting cooler as we head into Autumn and Winter ( im obsessed with Winter! The season, the clothing, the layers, the fabulous boots, (i just purchased a new pair and its still so hot outside) scarves, jackets, coats, throws and of course sitting in watching a great film while drinking Chai and baking every kind of mouth watering recipe from one of my most favourite aspiring chefs, Tessa Kiros) i came across this fabulous photo from my sisters blog http://trialsandtribulationsofacitygirl.wordpress.com/ which i believe is captured backstage at a Burbury show. We can definately still wear our summer favourites and bring them straight into winter with just one accessory... effortless chic.

Reinvent Yourself

Its time to start gathering up any old pieces of clothing your willing to throw away and reinvent your style with some good old fashion recycling!
Its so simple and effective! Once your finished adding a few new aspects to your once old granny look skirt your left with a beautiful new creation, a one-off garment that no one else has and the best thing... its PRICELESS!

Natalie and I started off with two articles of clothing, an old sail boat printed sunray pleated skirt and a black and white chiffon top. We ended up with a beautiful strapless baby doll shift and a bolero jacket.

Check out our photos to see how the process went!
1. The skirt and the top.

2. Our skirt reinvented as a dress. Strapless with drawstring panels both at the back and front under the bust with roloux strings made from the extra blouse material. Ties up on the sides.

3. Using the left over material from the cut hem we made a casing for the rouloux strings to reshape the dress.

4. Here we gathered up (using the sunray pleats as the feature) a long strip wide enough to fit the centre front of the bust area and then attached a piece of red fabric to the centre. If only we found some buttons with anchors on them: P we would’ve sewn them on too!

5. With our top, all we did was cut the sleeves shorter and up the centre front, also cutting the length to make it a short very cute bolero jacket.. The stripes work well with our theme of sailing!

So here they are...the finished products of a three hour pressure test of reinventing something great into something fantastic!

Thanks to Kim for modelling :)